Portland-based interior design firm Osmose Design has been hired for a project to create a new public tasting room in Portland’s Central Eastside for House Spirits Distillery.

The firm, which has worked for clients such as Salt & Straw and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, is designing a 1,100-square-foot tasting room and adjacent VIP room in House Spirits’ new location at 68 S.E. Stark St.

Lorentz Bruun Construction crews started work last fall on tenant improvements for the distillery to occupy a nearly 14,000-square-foot former storage shed once used by building materials supplier Dealers Supply Co. The project is scheduled to be complete in September.

House Spirits’ new tasting room will feature a large viewing window behind the bar looking into the distillery’s production area for spirits that include gin, vodka and malt whiskey, said Osmose Design owner and principal designer Andee Hess. Ample views of distillery operations will serve as the focal point, she said.

“The whole space is oriented around that,” Hess said.

The tasting room will also feature an archive area highlighting the history of the distillery and notable spirits it has produced, she said.

“We designed a space that helps synthesize the different elements that make up House Spirits,” Hess said.

House Spirits will lease its new production facility and tasting room from Harsch Investment Properties. The core, shell and exterior tenant improvements were designed by Mackenzie. Laurence Ferar & Associates served as the interior architect.

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A planned upgrade to increase the capacity of the wastewater treatment plant in The Dalles will be designed and built using an alternative project delivery method that maximizes client input.

The city of The Dalles has hired general contractor Mortenson Construction and engineering firm Kennedy/Jenks Consultants to complete the $4.8 million project using progressive design-build methodology. Instead of seeking preliminary designs from firms vying for a project, cities and other public entities that opt for the progressive design-build method typically hire a team based solely on qualifications and past experience. This eliminates any design work that occurs without owner input, providing the opportunity for the client to be involved in the process from the earliest planning stages.

“In progressive (design-build), it’s really based on the customer and the culture of the organization,” said Thomas Paul, general manager of Mortenson’s environmental group.

When the Mortenson and Kennedy/Jenks team was shortlisted to design and build The Dalles wastewater treatment plant project, city officials invited the two firms to a four-hour interview with no agenda, he said. During the interview, Mortenson and Kennedy/Jenks staffers explored the city’s options for either updating or replacing its nearly 80-year-old wastewater treatment plant. This ultimately led to the team landing the job late last year.

“There really aren’t a lot of rules with progressive design-build,” Paul said. “You kind of take a bunch of ideas and throw them on a board.”

Through a process of brainstorming with the design-build team that’s continued since the firms were hired, city officials decided to go against the recommendation of a facilities master plan to replace the aging wastewater treatment plant with a new facility, said Dave Anderson, public works director for The Dalles. Plans to renovate a pump station to increase the amount of waste that can be pumped into the plant will result in significant amount of cost savings over replacing it, he said.

“We saw that the design-build process would allow the contractor to be involved early in the process,” Anderson said. “We also realized that the concepts that were presented in our facilities plan were concepts and they were just that, and allow for as much innovation as we can with our construction contractor. We are taking a step back from the facilities master plan and trying to identify all the ways we could do this.”

When the project team analyzed the city’s options for increasing the capacity of its wastewater treatment plant, the team realized the recommendation of the facilities plan to replace the facility didn’t make a lot of sense, especially from a cost perspective.

“We said, ‘What’s wrong with your current building and how can we reuse that asset?’” Paul said.

The project team recently wrapped up the “discover and explore phase” of the design process with four potential alternatives for updating the wastewater treatment plant with careful consideration of the estimated cost for each option, Anderson said.

“I’m really encouraged at this point,” he said. “It looks like we have the opportunity to save millions of dollars and still achieve our needs.”

Looking at ways to most cost-effectively complete a project is one of the biggest advantages of progressive design-build, Paul said.

“I think it’s a value analysis,” he said. “When you bring that to the table, it’s a huge cost advantage.”

Although the city of The Dalles has completed projects in the past using the design-build process, the wastewater treatment plant upgrade is the first to be done using the progressive method, Anderson said. He suggested the city give progressive design-build a try after learning about the concept at a wastewater plant design conference.

“Under a traditional delivery method, it’s possible we would have taken that (replacement) concept from the master plan,” Anderson said. “I think we’re providing some better value to us by looking at some other alternatives.”

Construction is scheduled to start this fall on upgrades to The Dalles’ wastewater treatment plant and be complete by fall 2016.

The Dalles wastewater treatment plant upgrade

Location: 105 Laughlin St., The Dalles

Cost: $4.8 million

Anticipated construction start date: Fall 2015

Anticipated construction completion date: Fall 2016

Owner: City of The Dalles

Engineer: Kennedy/Jenks Consultants

General contractor: Mortenson Construction

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Industry groups are hailing the Oregon Legislature’s approval of a bill that creates a new governor-appointed position dedicated to helping state agencies better prepare for “The Big One.”

The Oregon chapters of the American Institute of Architects and American Planning Association are among the industry groups that backed House Bill 2270, which passed in the state House on June 30 and in the Senate on July 1. Once Gov. Kate Brown signs the bill into law, it will create a state seismic resilience officer position in her office.

The new position will be responsible for coordinating state agency seismic safety planning and preparation for an impending high-magnitude earthquake and accompanying tsunami caused by the Cascadia subduction zone fault off the Oregon Coast. The looming disaster is predicted to cause massive damage to the state’s infrastructure and buildings.

“The whole concept of improving our resilience to great subduction earthquakes kind of requires that we have consistent, long-term attention to the process,” said Ian Madin, interim state geologist with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. “There has to be someone that is always there pointing out these opportunities (to improve seismic safety) and be that cheerleader.”

Creating a state resilience officer positon was the top recommendation of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission’s Oregon Resilience Plan, said Jay Wilson, the commission chairman and resilience coordinator for Clackamas County. The plan, released two years ago, identified ways state officials could better reduce the risk and recovery time following a subduction earthquake and tsunami.

“We were looking at the deficits we had with leadership and also accountability and authority to keep this plan moving forward,” Wilson said. “There needed to be some way to tie this report to every legislative session.”

Since there hasn’t been a dedicated state position pushing for seismic safety measures, the job has often been split up among different state agencies, said Jay Raskin, AIA Oregon board member and chairman of the chapter’s resilience committee. The new state seismic resilience officer could coordinate better communication between those agencies to promote seismic retrofit projects, he said.

“This person can help bridge between agencies,” Raskin said. “It’s nice to have someone keep track. That’s part of the reason why we wanted it to be part of the governor’s office.”

The bill struck a chord with Oregon architects, engineers and planners. More than 40 design professionals testified to state lawmakers in favor of creating a state seismic resilience officer position, according to Raskin.

“The AIA realizes that because we design and build buildings this whole idea of resilience is quite important to us,” he said.

Establishing a state seismic resilience officer was among APA Oregon’s top priorities for this year’s legislative session, said Damian Syrnyk, chairman of the chapter’s legislative and policy affairs committee and senior planner with the city of Bend. The organization’s members are hopeful the new state position will be an advocate for anticipating those natural disasters in regional comprehensive plans and economic development efforts, he said.

Another benefit of creating a state seismic resilience officer will the position’s role in promoting the incorporation of seismic safety measures into remodel projects when it’s usually more cost effective to make those improvements, Madin said.

“Because it’s so difficult to pay for it, we always have to look for opportunities to be as efficient as possible,” he said. “Extending that mindset … is one of that most important functions of that position.”

The seismic resilience officer will champion the notion that preparing for a big earthquake or other natural disaster extends from city planning efforts to retrofitting older buildings, Wilson said.

“It should be something that’s integrated into daily decisions,” he said. “Our biggest issue is we can’t wait for this (disaster) to happen before we do something.”

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Restore Oregon next month will host an event next month highlighting efforts to restore the Edwin Rayworth House, a 125-year-old Queen Anne-style cottage in Portland.

The nonprofit organization has scheduled a talk about project, “If These Walls Could Talk: Behind the Scenes of the Rayworth House Restoration,” for August 22 from 1 to 5 p.m. in Portland at an address provided to ticket purchasers.

Restore Oregon board member Roy Fox and his wife, Kim, will discuss how they e from demolition by moving it two years ago from North Portland’s Boise neighborhood to nearby Piedmont. Work is under way on a project to fully restore the house at its new location.

Industry professionals will be available during the event to talk about topics such as repairing the home’s windows, plaster work, color choices and kitchen design. Restore Oregon staffers will also discuss options for saving older homes from demolition and answer historic preservation questions.

Tickets to the event are $15 for Restore Oregon members and $18 for nonmembers. Food and refreshments will be provided. Participants must be 21 or older.

Online registration for the event is available at Restore Oregon’s .

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A group of high school students interested in design careers has offered fresh views to a longtime effort to build a public market in Portland.

The two dozen students were participants last week in the annual University of Oregon Portland Design Camp hosted by the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Now in its seventh year, the weeklong camp is aimed at exposing teens to the closely aligned disciplines of architecture, digital arts and product design. This year, camp organizers partnered with the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation, a non-profit organization that for the past 15 years has worked to build the James Beard Public Market.

Camp participants had a chance to create their own designs for the proposed market – named for the Portland-born late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist and television personality . At the conclusion of the camp last Friday, the students shared their concepts with the public during an open house and final critique at the White Stag Block in Portland.

“We’re always thrilled to have new perspectives look at it,” said James Beard Public Market project manager Jennifer Mannhard. “We’re trying very hard, as far as outreach, to get as much general public involvement as possible. You never know where a brilliant idea will come from.”

The University of Oregon alumni who teach the camp were looking for a community-oriented theme and this year were inspired by the recent public release of conceptual designs for the market by Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta, said camp instructor Alex Atallah, a UO architecture graduate who now works for Portland-based GBD Architects.

“With the unveiling of the James Beard Public market, it was the perfect tie-in,” he said.

Connecting the camp’s lessons to the market project provided a real-world design problem to confront and ample opportunities for the students to explore what it would be like to work as a designer, according to Atallah.

“The main idea is getting high school students interested in design,” he said. “It’s getting them thinking about what they want to do.”

Working in groups similar to the way they would as design professionals, the students conceived their own versions of the James Beard Public Market on the proposed project site at the west end of the Morrison Bridge. Campers also designed logos for the market and products shoppers could use to carry produce and other purchases back to their homes.

“I think the James Beard Public Market is the perfect project for Design Camp because it shows the multidisciplinary and collaborative nature of design,” said Alison Ho, a freelance graphic designer and the camp’s digital arts instructor.

To inform their design decisions, camp participants toured the project site with Mannhard and the market foundation’s executive director Ron Paul, and visited a Portland farmers market to observe and sketch. Other field trips included a tour of GBD Architects’ downtown Portland office.

On Thursday, the students practiced their skills at architectural drawing by sketching the layout of their bedrooms and homes on a large piece of butcher paper tapped to the floor of a classroom in the White Stag Block.

Camp participant Norris Meigs, a freshman at Riverdale High School in Southwest Portland, said she enrolled in the camp because she was interested in graphic design. But after learning more about architecture in the camp, she’s considering pursuing a career as an architect.

While putting finishing touches on a drawing showing the layout of her house, Meigs said she appreciated that the camp offered the opportunity to consider how she would approach the James Beard Public Market project.

“I think it’s really fun, especially because there’s going to be a new (market) soon,” she said.

The camp helped Ella McMullin, a junior at St. Mary’s Academy in downtown Portland, answer a lot of her questions about what it’s like to work as an architect. She was also pleased to learn about the diverse range of design career opportunities.

“I like all the different parts of design there are,” she said.

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Plans first made 20 years ago to build an official entrance to Portland’s Forest Park are closer to becoming a reality with the recent award of $1.5 million in state lottery bond funding for the project design.

The city of Portland will use the funds, along with $800,000 in system development charges revenue, to complete the site planning, engineering and design for the project, said Astrid Dragoy, Portland Parks & Recreation natural areas manager. Requests for proposals seeking a design team will likely be issued within the next six months after a new city staffer has been hired to oversee the project, she said.

Plans for the new Forest Park entrance, first proposed in a 1995 city plan for the 5,200-acre park, call for a nature center, trail and viewing platform that are accessible to people with disabilities and a parking lot that can accommodate school buses for students on field trips. The project would be constructed on a city-owned former industrial brownfield site adjacent to Forest Park near the intersection of Highway 30 and Northwest Kittridge Avenue.

The project will create a main entry point that’s currently missing from Forest Park – the largest forested urban park in the U.S. – and ease access to its nature trails, Dragoy said.

“While we have a lot of entrances to Forest Park, they tend to be kind of small and a lot of entrances are in neighborhoods,” she said. “The park will now have an iconic entrance.”

Park officials hope to wrap up design and break ground on the new visitor center, parking lot and trail within the next two years, but must first secure funding to move into construction, Dragoy said. Once the design phase is complete, the city will have an estimate for the project construction cost, she added.

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Bremik Construction crews will soon start building a new roof deck designedt by Scott|Edwards Architecure for the 10 Barrel Brewing Co. pub in Portland’s Pearl District.

City building permits will likely be secured in the next couple weeks to start construction on the 1,570-square-foot deck with additional seating and an outdoor bar on top of the brewery, at 1411 N.W. Flanders St., said Sara Ruzomberka, a Scott | Edwards project manager.

Plans for a roof deck were incorporated into the original design of Bend-based 10 Barrel’s Portland brewery, which Andersen Construction completed in March, but the renovation project ended up being broken into two phases.

“So everyone can enjoy the beer now, we thought it would be a faster process to get the inside done first,” Ruzomberka said. “All of the infrastructure for the roof deck was already put in place during the first phase of the project. Basically, the roof deck has been part of the vision from the beginning.”

The deck should to be complete by late summer or early fall, she said.

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The Portland Bureau of Environmental Services has approved the use of an Ohio company’s stormwater treatment system to meet city requirements to filter runoff on Portland projects.

A BES staff evaluation and third party review by Portland State University’s engineering department determined that West Chester, Ohio-based Contech Engineered Solutions’ Filterra bioretention system meets pollution reduction requirements outlined in Portland’s Stormwater Management Manual. Approval of the product was finalized earlier this month and will last for three years.

The Filterra system collects runoff through a curb opening that flows into a specially designed planting media mix for filtering the stormwater that is contained in a landscaped concrete container, according to the Contech Engineered Solutions website. Once pollutants have been filtered out of the runoff, it flows into an underdrain system in the bottom of the container where the treated water is discharged.

Manufacturers like Contech can ask BES staff to evaluate stormwater treatment technologies to determine if the products meet city pollution reduction requirements. The city’s evaluation process uses criteria established by the Washington State Department of Ecology.

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Beaverton-based tech firm Allion USA Engineering Services  is expanding into more space at Unico Properties’ AmberGlen Business Center.

The firm will expand its current headquarters to occupy 52,746 square feet of space in the 217-acre Beaverton office park, at 1365 N.W. AmberGlen Parkway, NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson Vice President Brandon Frank said. The Portland-based commercial real estate company represented the lessor, Amber Glen Office Corp., in the expansion deal.

Allion USA has been hiring and needed more office space to accommodate additional staff, Franksaid. Tenant improvements to the new space should be completed in the next few months, he said.

Jones Lang LaSalle Vice President Charlie Floberg represented Allion USA, the lessee.

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Construction is scheduled to start later this summer on the Oregon Zoo’s new conservation education center.

The zoo will host a groundbreaking ceremony on Sept. 1 to celebrate the start of construction on the $10.1 million project to build a 19,000-square-foot education center. The building will house classrooms, a 150-seat auditorium, community meeting space, an insect zoo and an interactive conservation lab where visitors can learn how zoo scientists care for endangered animals. Plans also call for a new plaza, outdoor café, learning garden and nature playground.

Fortis Construction Inc.will serve as the project’s general contractor. The Portland-based firm is seeking subcontractors and will host on Thursday an open house for companies interested in bidding on the project. The open house will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Vista Room at the Oregon Zoo, 4001 S.W. Canyon Road, Portland.

The education center was designed by Portland-based Opsis Architecture in collaboration with Seattle-based Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects.

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